What do we mean by a neighborhood?
NeighborhoodScout® uses the official government designation for neighborhoods - the census tract.
Census tracts are small, relatively permanent subdivisions of a county that are defined by the U.S. Census Bureau in conjunction with local authorities all across the country to define real neighborhoods that are bounded to contain areas with homogeneous population characteristics (including economic status, lifestyle, and living conditions). Census tracts usually have 4,000 persons, but can range between 1,500 and 8,000 persons. This is the most fine-grained area for which detailed information is made available from the government, to protect the individual privacy of each of us. Because census tracts are based on population, they vary in size depending on the density of settlement. In urban areas, they are small, and in rural areas they can cover an entire small town or even a few small towns in very rural areas.
Since census tracts are subdivisions of a county, we did a spatial overlay of the census tracts onto city and town boundaries using a geographic information system to properly assign each census tract to its appropriate city or town. Then we named each census tract to the local colloquially recognized neighborhood name for that spot (e.g., Boston, MA (Dorchester). If there was not a name available, we named the census tract by the largest street intersection in the census tract (e.g., Worcester, MA (Lincoln St/Plantation St)
Why we don't use Zip Codes as neighborhoods
Zip codes were developed by the Postal Service for the purpose of delivering mail, but were never intended to define coherent neighborhoods. In addition, Zip Codes can have as many as 10 distinctly different census tracts contained within them. When distinct census tracts are blended together in a single Zip Code, the data reflects their average conditions and often gives a false sense of the area. The result is that potentially great matching neighborhoods can be missed, and erroneous matches can also be produced and delivered to you.
Using census tracts makes great matches possible, and helps people find the areas that are best for them and their families. Because we are committed to providing the highest possible quality and finding the neighborhoods that best meet your criteria, we use census tracts. And, as always, we show you the actual street map of the neighborhood so you know exactly where your best matching neighborhood is located.
What is a Condition Alert?
A condition alert is a condition in the neighborhood that triggers an alert. NeighborhoodScout contains condition alerts to highlight conditions that are extreme, whether good or bad. This helps answer crucial questions about the state of the neighborhood being evaluated, such as:
What are the risks of violent crime here?
Is the risk of home break-ins or other property crimes increasing?
Does real estate here hold its value?
Are the trends in local vacancies or unemployment concerning?
...and dozens more.
Information at a glance that you need to know to invest, appraise or finance a property.
Woodlawn East median real estate price is $466,302, which is more expensive than 83.3% of the neighborhoods in Illinois and 65.9% of the neighborhoods in the U.S.
The average rental price in Woodlawn East is currently $1,435, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. Rents here are currently lower in price than 68.6% of Illinois neighborhoods.
Woodlawn East is an urban neighborhood (based on population density) located in Chicago, Illinois.
Woodlawn East real estate is primarily made up of small (studio to two bedroom) to medium sized (three or four bedroom) apartment complexes/high-rise apartments and small apartment buildings. Most of the residential real estate is renter occupied. Many of the residences in the Woodlawn East neighborhood are established but not old, having been built between 1970 and 1999. A number of residences were also built between 1940 and 1969.
In Woodlawn East, the current vacancy rate is 2.2%, which is a lower rate of vacancies than 85.4% of all neighborhoods in the U.S. This means that the housing supply in Woodlawn East is very tight compared to the demand for property here.
Notable & Unique Neighborhood Characteristics
The way a neighborhood looks and feels when you walk or drive around it, from its setting, its buildings, and its flavor, can make all the difference. This neighborhood has some really cool things about the way it looks and feels as revealed by NeighborhoodScout's exclusive research. This might include anything from the housing stock to the types of households living here to how people get around.
People
The Woodlawn East neighborhood stands out for having an average per capita income lower than 99.1% of the neighborhoods in the United States. Also of note, 68.0% of the children in this area live in poverty; an extraordinarily high percentage compared to other neighborhoods in the nation. In a nation where approximately one in four children grows up in poverty, this neighborhood stands out for the depth of the problem manifested here.
In addition, one of the most interesting things about the Woodlawn East neighborhood is that it has a greater concentration of residents who live alone than most all neighborhoods in America. With 57.3% of the households here made up of people living alone, NeighborhoodScout's research reveals that this is a larger proportion of people living alone than in 98.3% of the neighborhoods in America.
Modes of Transportation
Our research revealed that more commuters here take the bus to work (22.0% ride the bus) than 98.9% of all American neighborhoods. If you like the idea of leaving your car and home and hopping the bus to work, this might be a good neighborhood for you to consider.
Real Estate
Renter-occupied real estate is dominant in the Woodlawn East neighborhood. The percentage of rental real estate here, according to exclusive NeighborhoodScout analysis, is 98.4%, which is higher than 98.8% of the neighborhoods in America. If you were to buy and live in the property you bought here, you would be almost alone in doing so.
In addition, one of the really unique and interesting things about the look and setting of the Woodlawn East neighborhood is that it is almost entirely dominated by large apartment buildings, such as apartment complexes or high-rise apartments. 72.3% of the residential real estate here is classified as such. This puts this neighborhood on the map as having a higher proportion of large apartment buildings than 95.5% of all neighborhoods in America.
Diversity
Did you know that the Woodlawn East neighborhood has more African and Sub-Saharan African ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 14.6% of this neighborhood's residents have African ancestry and 21.1% have Sub-Saharan African ancestry.
The Neighbors
There are two complementary measures for understanding the income of a neighborhood's residents: the average and the extremes. While a neighborhood may be relatively wealthy overall, it is equally important to understand the rate of people - particularly children - who are living at or below the federal poverty line, which is extremely low income. Some neighborhoods with a lower average income may actually have a lower childhood poverty rate than another with a higher average income, and this helps us understand the conditions and character of a neighborhood.
The neighbors in the Woodlawn East neighborhood in Chicago are low income, making it among the lowest income neighborhoods in America. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 99.1% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 68.0% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 98.3% of U.S. neighborhoods.
The old saying "you are what you eat" is true. But it is also true that you are what you do for a living. The types of occupations your neighbors have shape their character, and together as a group, their collective occupations shape the culture of a place.
In the Woodlawn East neighborhood, 34.2% of the working population is employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants. The second most important occupational group in this neighborhood is executive, management, and professional occupations, with 26.7% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations (24.0%), and 15.0% in manufacturing and laborer occupations.
Languages
The most common language spoken in the Woodlawn East neighborhood is English, spoken by 95.3% of households.
Ethnicity / Ancestry
Culture is shared learned behavior. We learn it from our parents, their parents, our houses of worship, and much of our culture – our learned behavior – comes from our ancestors. That is why ancestry and ethnicity can be so interesting and important to understand: places with concentrations of people of one or more ancestries often express those shared learned behaviors and this gives each neighborhood its own culture. Even different neighborhoods in the same city can have drastically different cultures.
In the Woodlawn East neighborhood in Chicago, IL, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Sub-Saharan African (21.1%). There are also a number of people of African ancestry (14.6%), and residents who report Irish roots (2.5%), and some of the residents are also of Italian ancestry (2.4%), along with some German ancestry residents (1.5%), among others.
Getting to Work
How you get to work – car, bus, train or other means – and how much of your day it takes to do so is a large quality of life and financial issue. Especially with gasoline prices rising and expected to continue doing so, the length and means of one's commute can be a financial burden. Some neighborhoods are physically located so that many residents have to drive in their own car, others are set up so many walk to work, or can take a train, bus, or bike. The greatest number of commuters in Woodlawn East neighborhood spend between 15 and 30 minutes commuting one-way to work (34.5% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans.
Here most residents (50.0%) drive alone in a private automobile to get to work. In addition, quite a number also ride the bus to get to work (22.0%) and 16.5% of residents also carpool with coworkers, friends, or neighbors for their daily commute. In a neighborhood like this, as in most of the nation, many residents find owning a car useful for getting to work.
SCOUT’s patented match algorithm identifies the most similar neighborhoods to a subject location, and quantifies the similarity to the subject location. This allows analysts to identify the most similar neighborhoods in a local market area for appraisals, investments, and research.
The algorithm uses 273 neighborhood conditions, identifies the dominant dimensions underlying the conditions and calculates the similarity. This captures the true culture and character of locations, economic conditions, and trends.
The closer to 100% means the locations are nearly identical. 80% is a very good, but not excellent match, and so forth.
